


Symmetric Relation

by frangipani



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Jedi Order Era - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Force Bond, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, PWP, boring married feelings, lazy boring married sex, so sappy i wanna die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8774680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani/pseuds/frangipani
Summary: While investigating some dark side disturbance in Vongformed Coruscant, Luke finds himself vulnerable to dark side influence and takes some time to regroup.Missing scene from Allston’s Behind Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand (NJO).





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I wrote something set in fucking Vong. My own take on the following line:
> 
> _Mara knew little, other than from observation and studies in psychology, about comforting those who were hurt. Most of what she knew she had learned since Ben had been born._
> 
>  The first half page has a lot of the dialogue from canon with some of my additions. Two other lines show up in italics. Yeah yeah, Care and Keeping, but it'll take me a while. Have some feelings!porn instead. It's a one-shot this time!

**Coruscant, Pasarian Memorial Atmospheric Reclamation Complex Project, Substation One - Housing level, 27ABY**

  


“You’re tired,” Mara said. “And this makes you more susceptible to Force powers. He meddled with you, certainly … but once you get some sleep you’ll be more fit to face him.”

“I don’t think so,” Luke said, passing a hand through his hair. He was thinking of the man he'd seen, the darkness he'd exuded, but also of the failure to find a getaway vehicle to get them and the team offplanet once the mission was over...and the looming possibility of failure in the mission itself. Coruscant seemed even further from being theirs again. His thoughts circled back to the man. And now this. 

“I’m certain being tired made it easier for him to transmit all that despair and the mental compulsion through the Force, yes. But I also have a sense that he’s powerful. And I know I’ve seen his face somewhere --” Luke’s next words were cut off as he yawned.

The lights in the room were off, but he could still sense Mara giving him a stern look. She felt like she was.

“I know, I know.” Luke couldn’t help smiling a bit at her concern over him. “I need sleep. I’m tired.”

He stretched out on the cot, still feeling the weight of the encounter with that strange man. He'd known back at Borleias that there was dark side evil in Coruscant, but he was still left reeling from the way that man had made him see what wasn’t there. Almost made him act on it. 

“Tired, and I have to admit it,” Luke said with a frown, "scared of something that could sneak up on me and plant a Force-based suggestion in my mind. As though I were some spice addict with no resistance, no training.”

Mara’s voice came back, a wry teasing note in it. “Tired and wounded in pride.”

Luke grinned. Mara always cut through the niceties. “Well, maybe.”

“Get some sleep, farmboy. You’ll feel better—and think better—once your power cells are recharged.”

“True.” He shifted to his side, eyes on Mara's outline. She was still sitting on the cot that took up most of the room they'd made their own for their time here. She sat about half a foot from him, her back ramrod straight. He’d have to have been surrounded by ysalamiri not to sense her stretching out with the Force. He worried a little, too, that the failure of this mission meant her losing a bit of her faith in him, but reaching out, only concern spiked through their bond, certainly, at whatever was out there, and underneath, for him, his state, well below there was her own tiredness, and underneath that...he furrowed his brow. A trickle of self recrimination?

He hadn’t expected to sense that. Maybe a bit of anger at him, lingering resentment over having had to leave Ben...he promised himself again they’d deal with that as soon as they got back. He’d make time.

“Hey.” Luke put a hand on her leg. “Bhindi and Face are keeping watch. You rest too.”

“Someone needs to keep watch,” Mara replied with no give in her posture. “Through the Force.”

“Tahiri is up too. And I didn’t say sleep, just...” He shifted his hand to her arm to tug at her. “Lie down for a minute.”

Mara opened her mouth to argue and something in her emotions flickered, the trickle of self recrimination blossoming into a pang as she slid down to lie on the cot. She turned on her side, facing him and curled her arms around his shoulders nestling her head in the crook of his neck. He wanted to ask her about it, but he found he could scarcely feel that note anymore, only the solidity of her arms around him, errant strands of her hair brushing against his neck, her Force sense wrapped around his, the worry in it deepening.

Luke released a breath, looping his own arms around her back, sending some reassurance. Mara was right in her usual logical way. He’d been tired. The strange man would find it more difficult to push next time. They’d make something out of this mission somehow. 

The self recrimination flickered again as Mara mumbled, “I wish I could say the right thing at moments like this.”

He pulled away, surprised. Was that what it was about? Making him feel better? “You know there's no such thing.” He dropped his cheek to the side of her head. “And you wouldn’t need it anyway.” 

She rubbed a hand along his back, shifting a bit to look up at him. He wished he could see her eyes, but all he saw was the vague shape of her upturned face. That was fine, he knew them well enough to paint them in his mind down to the shade. “I still want it.” 

Luke closed his eyes, stretching to where she shone the clearest within him; through the bond he saw an image of Ben, of him, an outpouring of tenderness there, rootedness, and hope.

As it always did, this kind of stream of emotion through the bond called out an instinctual response, his own feelings towards her and Ben mingling with hers, a profound gratitude that it would be him to be part of this, that the fabric of his life be woven this deeply into hers. She and Ben were his frame of reference to ward off the crippling self-doubt when his choices had spelled tragedy for so many. How could she worry about simple words in light of that?

Mara reached up to stroke at his jawline as she picked up her trail of thought again. “It’s that it’s different. Putting it all to words. For someone else.” 

Luke nodded and rested his chin lightly on top of her head, running a hand down her arm. “We talk about this in terms of restraining emotions that can lead to destructive actions,” he mused. “But it can easily go in the opposite direction. Constructive actions. Building something. Then it’s a question of translation from inside to outside.”

“See, you can distill it like that.” He could almost hear the second part of the statement. _I_ can’t.

He smiled and brought his hand up to her cheek, traced the shell of her ear. “If it’s distilling you’re after -- that one’s just practice. You could try taking another apprentice or two once this is over.”

She chuckled softly. “You’re trying to recruit me for teaching again? Aren’t we trying to win a war?” 

“War won’t last forever.” That he felt with certainty now. “We'll need all the experienced masters we can get and Jaina won't need that much attention anymore. Kyp's working with her.”

He could almost see her grimacing at the mention of Kyp, but her tone was easy. “Maybe. I’ll think about it...” She stayed silent. Normally, he’d let her, but she’d mentioned _words_.

“And...,” Luke nudged.

“It’s just that sometimes I think it’s only since Ben that I can... reach out like this.”

Luke shook his head and brought a hand under her chin. “Not true.”

He felt her consider it. “Well, then I guess I wish it was easier to feel like I’m translating right. From myself to you...and....” The smile faded, concern again surfacing...and heartache.

He followed, more by intuition than anything else, his hand falling to her shoulder. Even knowing at this level how they felt, the expression differed. There was always a type of reckoning to meet in the middle, to make words mean to someone else, and gathered her further into his embrace at the reminder that this would concern her because of him...and Ben.

“I miss him,” she whispered with the ring of an admission. Her ache had surfaced before her words and he let his own longing for Ben intertwine with hers, sharp enough to sting his eyes. His son, who Mara had risked her life for. Up until he was born, he’d been a symbol of all that could go right when the galaxy was falling apart. After, he was _Ben_ a small scrunched red face and tiny cries, a bright point of purity unlike anything Luke had ever felt through the Force. The imprint of them, wondrously enough, and yet utterly himself, new.

“I do too,” he said hoarsely. He’d thought he was so right in what he’d felt through the Force, that she should be here with him, but there _could_ have been a bit of selfishness and more than a bit of fear in what he’d seen... 

_“That’s what your feelings are telling you. What does the Force tell you?...You’re afraid it will tell you that you need to step away from Ben, however temporarily.”_

That had bothered her enough to call him a desert hermit disconnected from his feelings. But it hadn’t been that, he reflected with a measure of sadness.

He hadn’t been asking her to listen to the Force at all.

“I'm here," she said gently, placing a palm flat on his chest and it sounded like an answer. “Because of this. For you.”

Luke nodded slowly, parsing the words. That was a different answer from the first one she'd given him when he'd asked why she had decided to come, what had changed her mind. 

_"Time. Time to calm down, time to figure things out. Understanding that there’s nobody more suited than you are to stopping the enemy that menaces Ben, and there’s nobody better than me at watching your back."_

He thought of the alternative, lying here thinking about that dark presence without her, fearing it finding a foothold in his mind. Fearing disaster. He’d thought he was long beyond susceptibility, but with Anakin's death, despair was always a hairsbreadth away...

Luke closed his eyes. Didn’t change that the price had steep for her, would be for some time. He'd never meant to make her choose. He hadn't even thought of it that way.

But Ben meant differently for her. 

Mara drew her hand away and laid her cheek against his chest. To Luke, it felt a little like forgiveness, her knowledge that he’d never meant to cause her pain. The pressure of her cheek, the heat of it through his tunic against his heart, and her arms around him felt like a tether. More. A tether didn't hold onto you _back_.

A tether didn't whisper, "I love you."

Luke dropped a kiss at the top of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair. He thought himself at the very least proficient in her language by now. “I’m sorry I need you this much.” 

Mara laughed softly. “How does this turn into making me feel better?”

Luke smiled. Not so when it was her keeping him aloft. The exchange wasn’t coincidental so much as earned in his estimation. A good thing too, this close they could hurt each other with all the ease of a miscalculated turn that slams one’s own elbow against the table, only surmountable through the inexhaustible reserves of forbearance between them. 

“Making you feel better makes me feel better. It’s all calculated.”

She laughed again. “And where did that selfish streak come from?”

He smoothed down her hair and thought again of that disturbance in the Force. In the end, his opponent’s reach was bounded and Luke’s own resources were not, his fixed point tucked away in the reassuring weight of Mara in his arms, in the spark of life of his son. There was nothing stronger -- certainly not some strange solitary entity mired in gloom. Luke felt a wave of pity for him whoever he was, alone in darkness. Perhaps _he_ could be reached somehow.

Mara pulled away slightly, this time to press a kiss at the hollow of his throat. “You should sleep.”

Luke could, but he was at peace now. The logistics and worry of constant war strategizing made it difficult to truly feel what kept you afloat. Maybe there was a deeper reason for a mission to happen now. Perhaps he’d needed the reminder.

“You need the rest,” she warned, rolling to her side and away from him. He knew _she_ wasn’t likely to sleep, a bit of worry lingered in her sense. Diffuse, to be sure, but there all the same. Rest might be a good idea, but he counted what he’d gotten as a recharging of a different, much more important sort, especially now. He could give some of that back. Or take some more. It was all the same between them.

Luke scooped her up tighter against him. “In a second.”

There were many ways to retrace their connection, the luminousness of it beyond what the eye could see, what the hand could touch. Beings were not crude matter -- they weren’t _only_ crude matter. Crude was not a derogatory term there, the body was to be respected, after all, but matter was _simple_ , in light of everything else. Bodies were simple. And through matter, through each other's skin and breath, love became simple too.

“You’re projecting a hidden agenda, husband mine." Mara’s voice was a silken whisper. “You were yawning up a storm only a minute ago. Refreshing techniques are never as good as normal rest and we’re on a mission.”

All of that would be much more persuasive if she wasn’t projecting her own receptivity back. 

“I was just thinking...” He inched closer and ducked his head by her neck. “How much better missions go with you along. Should have had you around for all of them.”

Mara chuckled. “You’re such a sentimental fool when you’re tired. _Sleep_.”

In his now eight years of marriage, he knew when what she said was far less important than what she did, and at this particular moment she’d moved her leg so her ankle was at his calf, and she was grazing the back of her heel ever so gently down, so what she was saying suddenly mattered very, very little.

He smiled and nosed right behind her ear, making her shiver a little. “I mean it, just, you know, you’re so _helpful_. Take that old Imperial code you remembered.”

She chuckled again and it was a testament to how far that life for her was that it neither registered in her laugh nor in her sense.

“Helpful,” she echoed dryly. “I suppose. Good in an X-wing.”

“The best.”

She snorted. “Stop it. You don’t need to butter me up that much if you want sex.”

Luke muffled his laugh against her hair, not quite expecting her to be that blunt so quickly. She shifted back against him, tilting her hips drawing a soft groan from him, more from the intention she was blaring, they had too much clothing between them still.

“Mara,” he chided, dropping a hand to her waist under her tunic. It slipped over her ribcage below her breast, thumb stroking across the ridge of her lowest rib. He pondered pulling her onto her back and covering her body with his, but he was comfortable here and she was too. “I was building _up_ to something here.”

“You’re out of luck, anyway. Tahiri and them are outside.” She lifted a hand up to his head and he leaned into the touch, rubbing his cheek against her palm. “Haven’t you already scandalized them enough, Master Skywalker?”

Luke pulled away wrinkling his nose and made a small noise of protest. “Don’t. How was I supposed to know that red goo ate clothing? And they're off probably at another level.”

She let out a low laugh and her hand fell to his arm, the hand of which was still at her middle. 

“Besides you averted...the worst of it.” He slid his other hand from her shoulder to her wrist. "Protected my modesty and all that." Her tunic was long sleeved, which right now was a shame. He wanted more of her skin, but consoled himself with spreading his palm over the soft skin of her belly, brushing his lips against her nape, feeling her squirm. “I’m...not out of luck at all.”

“There's still Wraiths around,” Mara used the shorthand for the rest of the team. She did sigh as he grasped her leg to hike it over his with his free hand, and while they still had too much on, this was much better, the space between them even closer as he pushed his hips against her, the hand on her middle wandering down between her legs over the clothing. Luke listened for a rising gasp, a hiss through her teeth as he sucked a kiss to the side of her neck, wanting to hear a faint whine from her, but didn’t even though her hand tightened on his arm. "Thin walls. Flimsy cot."

"Not that flimsy." As for the rest, he let a hazy memory surface, and slid it towards her, of them in one of the near microscopic cabins in the Falcon’s cramped passenger hold, her, muffling her cries with his shoulder, clutching desperately at him as he thrust inside her, the ebb and flow of pleasure between them as she rolled her hips to meet his...

Luke knew she’d caught his meaning as if he’d said it out loud, _we can be quiet_ , and she tried to laugh, possibly knowing he’d sent the memory with those same ulterior motives -- if they could be called that now. The laugh though, turned into that breathy whine as he mouthed along the side of her neck, just before she clamped down on it. 

He chuckled against her neck. “Paranoid.”

She turned her head so he could trail kisses up to the side of her mouth, lifting a hand to cup the side of his head. He withdrew his hand, impatient to be rid of their clothes, sensing he wasn’t the only one, but she’d twisted more to offer her lips and he couldn’t refuse. 

“At this rate,” Mara was out of breath when she pulled away, “that strange man will show up for your climactic confrontation.”

“First out of luck and now you’re hurrying me.” He tucked his hand back under her tunic, inching his fingers up slightly, ghosting them along the underside of her breasts through the bra, hearing her gasp. “And climactic confrontation?” He bit lightly at her ear. “Watching too many holodramas.”

“I don't watch holodramas.”

“Right.” He skittered his fingers up the swell of her breast, just as she pressed back against him again, and he really wanted to get rid of their clothes, but he also liked being right here a great deal too. “Never,” he panted, grinding back against her.

“ _If_ I did...they’d only be interesting...from a historical standpoint. Old Republic...” 

“No real records of most of that stuff.” He cupped her breast, thumb stroking over her nipple, feeling it peak under his touch, and there, he lost his patience and pushed her bra up and brought both hands to cover her breasts. “Exist.”

“Doesn’t,” her breaths became more erratic as he kissed up her neck, as he slid his hands up her breasts, “mean you can't...imagine...” The edge of his palms brushed against the bra and he made a frustrated sound. Just not enough skin.

Mara didn’t laugh, but there was some amusement as she turned slightly and reached up for another kiss.

“So,” he said after, “You crying that one time --” There, he worked a hand under the waistband of her pants, under her underwear. “Was because it moved you...” While the uneven breathing and her sense were clear enough, nothing approximated feeling her slick under his touch. “Historically?”

It took her longer to respond now. “See what...hormones do...to you.” She broke off with a quiet moan that was even better than the knowledge that no one could spoil her concentration as quickly as he could. But it was more, because her gasp went sharp enough that his hips jerked against her instinctively, pushing the heat of her against his hand. For a second the press of her body, the slickness of her was all he had. He gulped air, and then he was urgently drawing his hand out to rid them of their clothes.

He couldn’t resist one last prod as he fumbled with her pants, not quite knowing where the fastenings were. “Master Jade Skywalker brought low by a holodrama.”

Mara swatted his hand away. “Oh, be quiet and take your pants off." A flurry of movement, later he heard her clothing be tossed somewhere on the side. 

He grinned. “Just the pants?”

Mara's hand dashed out again swatting him on the leg. But then in no time at all she was back against him. He hadn’t even gotten his own tunic off. Luke snickered, but then frowned at feeling _her_ tunic shirt still on.

“What’s all this?” He tugged at it.

“We’re on a _mission_.” She shifted away slightly, but that was a coy tone if there ever was one.

“It won’t take that long to get dressed again if we're called,” he groused, giving into the impulse to palm her breasts under the tunic. “Which we _won't_. You’re just getting back at me for bringing up Bastila Shan’s love scene again.”

“But think how young you feel groping me like this, Master Skywalker.”

He made a dismayed sound. “Oh, please stop.”

“Why?” She reached behind her to grasp him, taking up some preposterously high pitched tone, still keeping her voice at whisper-level. “Oh, do you like it, Master Skywalker? I think you do. You feel like you do.”

“That has nothing to do with what you’re _saying_ ,” he meant to hiss back, but only let out a quiet groan at the clasp of her hand. Her hand withdrew and he ducked his head to nip under her jaw as he kneaded her breasts. Her naked legs against his, the damp skin of her lower back where it pressed up against his belly, the slide of her skin on his length was transporting as it always was. Mara was silent for a bit, but for the sound of her quickening breaths. He only wished -- and the next thing he knew he was pulling off her tunic, unsnapping her bra and sliding it off her. She might have laughed, but it was lost in the quick movements, broken up by furious kisses.

“Stupid idea,” he muttered, breaking off to sweep kisses across her shoulders, her upper back, urged her to turn her head so he could feel her mouth part under his again, the softness of her lips, the stroke of her tongue against his. “Get back at me some other way,” he said once he could breathe again.

But she only gasped, “Yours off too."

And there it was as it should be, just her skin against his, and he couldn’t resist again. “See,” he whispered, sliding a hand between her thighs as his other grasped her hip. “So much better.” 

Mara let out a hushed groan, rocking against the pressure of his hand, brought her left leg over his and gasped his name as he teased them both. She cupped his cheek pulling him towards her for another kiss, sweet but for that note of sharp anticipation and he lowered his head to leave a love bite a few inches below her shoulder where it’d be covered by her tunic. She was breathing heavily by then, gasped as he pushed in, rolling her hips back. He leaned his forehead against her neck as she slid her hand over his at her hip and laced her fingers with his.

“So much...better.” She turned her head so he could kiss her again. He pulled away, lips by her temple, her ear. “ _Master Skywalker_.” And there he spluttered, caught off guard, remembering at the last minute to muffle his laughter which left him in a loud snort.

“You’re terrible,” he scolded, still chuckling. “Keep doing that and this isn't going to work.”

Mara shoved her hips back, making him gasp. “It’ll work.” He could hear her smirk. 

Luke wasn’t about to risk it arguing the point, so he concentrated on the welcoming heat of her, the feel of her skin sliding against his, his lips against her nape, the graze of her braid by his shoulder, and the way the push of his hips drove her against his hand, his other at her hip, fingers intertwined with hers. 

It would have been nice to fall helplessly, mercilessly into their bond, but they were too conscious of Tahiri, of where they were. It was enough though when Mara muffled her moan with the pillow, drawing tight and curling as if she’d meant to tuck herself further into him as she shuddered. He groaned his own release into her neck, pulsing into her, sparing some effort to making sure to keep their presences in check. 

“We should clean up,” Mara said once their breathing settled, but neither moved for a couple of minutes. Then with a sigh, Luke reached behind him to give Mara back her tunic shirt and her bra. He joined her in the ‘fresher after he found his own clothing and they padded back into the cot. 

Mara lay back, and he scooted up against her until his cheek was pressed by her chest while her arms came up around him. He had a instant of wishing again they could have tangled themselves up in the bond; being that deeply enfolded in that one person whose heart beats in tandem to yours was without comparison, but that was all right. For now, Mara’s Force presence glimmered like a moon on a clear night. He could dwell on that. Or he could dwell on the beat of her heart, another language he’d developed proficiency in. Family, it beat, happiness, strength. Dwell _in it_ , he thought. Which he did, no matter the point of view.

“You’re such a sentimental fool when you’re tired.” It was bit of a drowsy slur as Mara reached for his hand and brushed a kiss against his open palm. “Go to sleep. I'll stay up for a bit.” He closed his eyes with a smile. She was brighter than stars...just as at ease as he...and just as tired...

“No, you sleep too,” he murmured after a moment. “Need you...to be helpful...tomorrow.”

Luke waited for a little bit, but there was only the sound of her even breathing in response and the soft rise and fall of her chest under his cheek. 

He’d tease her about it tomorrow, he decided.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should point out that this fic has some thematic resonance with viola_dreamwalk's [Entropy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/208197), even though we're taking different angles and the Mara here is a very different person from the one there.


End file.
